Problems With Pygmy Puffs
by TreacleTart301
Summary: Fred was just about to step closer for a better look when Verity burst out of the pile. Horror was clearly written on her face. "The piles. They're all pygmy puffs! There are thousands of them. The entire storage room and both of your offices are completely full." 3rd Place in LooneyLizzie's Name That Fandom Challenge


It was a busy summer day and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes was full to the breaking point with students stockpiling supplies for the start of the school year. Extendable ears, love potions, punching telescopes and more were flying off the shelves. The owners, Fred and George Weasley, were smack dab in the middle of the hustle and the bustle, demonstrating their famous Skiving Snackboxes.

"Feeling a bit tired?" shouted Fred to the crowd.

"Exams got you down?" said George.

"Have a sociopathic, toad-faced Professor who's making your life miserable?" added Fred.

"Well then, our skiving snackbox is for you! Watch as we demonstrate the effects of our personal favorites, the puking pastille. Just a warning, you may want to stand back a bit. This can get messy."

George popped the orange half of the sweet into his mouth and within seconds projectile vomited with precision into a bucket a short distance away. The crowd jumped as drops splattered all over the floor and several people looked as if they might be on the verge of throwing up as well.

With one last heave, George managed to choke down the purple end of the sweet and the vomiting stopped just as quickly as it had started.

Fred stepped forward and quickly vanished the contents of the bucket, "How about a round of applause for George's incredible aim! He must've cleared at least three feet to make it into that bucket! That must be some sort of record."

George smiled and took a bow before returning to the sales pitch. "The benefit of this particular snackbox is that no Professor will question a student about needing to leave class when they are spewing their undigested lunch across half of the classroom. In fact, odds are they won't even bother to discuss pesky things like make up work because they'll be so eager to get you out. And for only seven galleons, they're a total steal!"

As the crowd mobbed forward to grab as many snackboxes as they could, a young, blonde witch with short hair made her way towards the twins. "Mr. Weasley," she said as she approached Fred. "I've just had a shipment of Pygmy Puffs arrive. I didn't have it on the inventory list, so I thought I'd check. We are short on them, so I figured you must've placed an order and forgotten to write it in."

"I didn't order them, so it must've been George. Just sign for them and throw them in the storage room for now."

"Yes, Mr. Weasley," she said with a nod. She slipped back in the direction she came just as the crowds surged forward once more.

"Alright. Alright," chided Fred, "No need to fight. We've got plenty of Snackboxes for everyone."

The rest of the day passed in a blur and the customers stayed well into the evening. Normal store hours came and went, but it seemed the crowds wouldn't let up. By the time that the last group left, the store looked as if it'd been trampled by a herd of stampeding hippogriffs. Litter was paper mâchéd to the floor with sticky substances. The area where they'd been demonstrating products was speckled with blood and other bodily fluids and almost every shelf in the shop was barren. Even the muggle joke section had been pretty well combed through.

"What do you say we call it a night?" asked George, wiping at the sweat on his forehead. "I'm beat."

Fred nodded in agreement.

George turned and scanned the store. "Verity!" he called.

"Yes, Mr. Weasley," she called out as she finished closing the register.

"Let's just go ahead and close up tonight. It's been a long day and we can re-stock tomorrow morning," said Fred.

"Yes, Mr. Weasley," she replied, rushing to finish.

The next morning, Fred and George returned to the store bright and early to get it back into order before the days crowds arrived. When they opened the doors, chaos awaited them. In the light of the morning, the store looked even filthier than it had the night before.

Cracking his knuckles, George looked around the room. "What do you say I start on this side of the store and you start on the other? We'll each work towards the middle."

"Sounds good," said Fred. "Verity should be in soon, so she can help re-stock once she gets here."

Soon brooms were set to work sweeping, mops to mopping, and dusters to dusting. A hurricane of garbage swirled through the center of the room leaving every surface sparkling.

"Good morning, Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley," said Verity as she entered the store. "Where would you like me to start?"

"We were just about to start re-stocking the shelves. You can give us a hand with that," replied George.

"Alright. I'll start on this shelf here," she stated, motioning towards the empty skiving snackbox display.

"Make it so," answered Fred.

With a wave of her wand, Verity said "Accio Skiving Snackboxes." She waited for several seconds, but nothing came. She tried once more, but still nothing.

"Erm…Mr. Weasley, it seems that my wand isn't working at the moment. Would you mind summoning the skiving snackboxes?"

"Sure thing, Verity," Fred said. "Accio skiving snackboxes!"

They waited and again nothing happened.

"Are you sure we have them in stock?" George asked as he walked towards them. "We sold an awful lot of them yesterday. Maybe we're out. Here. Let me try something else. Accio Extendable Ears!"

The room remained completely still.

"That's strange. I know we have those in. Remember, we made about two hundred of them just the other day and there's no way we've sold them all already. Verity, can you go check out the storage room and see what's going on? George and I will finish up out here."

Verity did as she was asked and disappeared into the storage room.

Suddenly, a shriek ripped through the air. Fred and George exchanged nervous glances and rocketed off to the storage room. Bursting through the door, both boys stopped dead in their tracks. The entire room was filled with what looked to be giant pink, blue, and purple cotton balls. There were so many of them that nothing else could be seen. They covered the shelves, the cabinets, the floor, and the tables.

"Verity?" George called "Are you in here?"

There was only silence.

"You don't suppose she's buried in one of those piles, do you?" asked Fred.

Stepping forward into the room, George looked carefully at one of the mounds. "It almost looks like it's moving."

Fred was just about to step closer for a better look when Verity burst out of the pile. Horror was clearly written on her face.

"What's wrong, Verity?"

"The piles. They're all pygmy puffs! There are thousands of them. The entire storage room and both of your offices are completely full."

"Wait. What?" said a startled George as he picked up one of the many Pygmy Puffs in front of him. "How did this happen?"

Verity dropped her gaze to the floor. "I think it's my fault, Mr. Weasley. The shipment of Pygmy Puffs came in yesterday and we were so busy I just threw the crate of them in the storage room. I left the lid slightly open, so that they'd be able to breathe and then I went back to work. I had planned to put them away when we did the stocking last night, but then we were all so tired and we just went home and I forgot. Merlin, I'm so sorry. I've created such a terrible mess. They must've bred over night."

"That's impossible," said Fred, "Our Pygmy Puffs have been modified so that they are unable to breed, otherwise we'd end up with a million of them."

"He's right. This is highly illogical." George added. "Do you think they could've come from somewhere else? Maybe our shipments got mixed up?"

Fred began to wade into the piles of pink, blue, and purple.

"Wait, Mr. Weasley. What are you doing?"

"I'm about to boldly go where no man has gone before. Into a gigantic pile of Pygmy Puffs. I'm going to see if I can find the box that they were shipped in. Maybe that will provide us with some clues."

George watched his brother disappear into the pile and worried that he might not come back out. "While he's in there, let's work on vanishing all of these Pygmy Puffs, alright Verity? Maybe we can make a dent in them."

"Right you are, Mr. Weasley. Set wand to vanish," she replied as she lifted her wand high up into the air and begin attempting to make a dent in the fuzzy mounds.

"Guys," a muffled voice called from somewhere deep inside of the room. "The Pygmy Puffs are eating all of our products. If we don't hurry up and get them out of here soon, we won't have anything left."

Verity paused deep in thought. "Why would the Pygmy Puffs eat the products? Normally, they only eat grain."

A moment later, Fred exploded from the pile with the original crate held above his head in victory. "I found it. Don't ask me how, but here it is."

George, Fred, and Verity hovered around the box inspecting every inch of it. It was made of rough ply wood and had several vent holes for the pygmy puffs to breathe out of. It seemed to be just like any other delivery box, at least until they flipped it over.

"Wait a minute," shouted George, "Isn't that Zonko's logo on the bottom there?"

Verity looked shocked. "Yes, Mr. Weasley. That's their logo, but why would they be sending us a crate of Pygmy Puffs?"

"I think I have an idea why," said Fred. "We've been looking at property in Hogsmeade. Thought we'd open up a second shop a bit closer to Hogwarts. The student demand for pranks has been so high that our mail order business can't keep up. We figured being closer would alleviate some of that. When we announced our intent to purchase the location, Locutus Ovborg, the owner of Zonko's lost his mind and accused us of trying to shut down his business."

"I'd forgotten all about that," added George. "He got pretty nasty. Called here threatening legal action a couple of times. But that still doesn't really explain why he'd ship us a case of Pygmy Puffs."

Verity's eyes bulged and her mouth dropped open. "To ruin our supply. He must've known we'd be busy and not have time to attend to them. Then they'd breed out of control and by the time we noticed they'd have chewed through half of our supplies. It makes perfect sense."

"What a prat," George murmured under his breath. "You'd think if he was going to sabotage us, he'd at least try a little harder."

"Shall we get a bit of revenge then?" asked Fred with a mischievous sparkle in his eye.

George nodded fervently. "Engage."

Fred lifted his wand and waved it at the pile. "Pygmy Puff Teleportus Maximus. Portable Swamp Teleportus Maximus." With a flick of his wrist the mountains of fluff were gone. "In a few minutes, he'll have a taste of his own potion. I just sent all of them back to him, except now there are thousands of them and a not-so-portable swamp too. I wonder how long it'll take him to figure out how to get rid of it all. He never struck me as a particularly sharp wizard."

"Good one, Mr. Weasley," said Verity, laughter bursting from her throat.

The three wizards turned back to the storage room and set to work putting it back in order for the day to come.

* * *

 _Hi there!_

 _This story was originally posted on HPFF for the Name That Fandom Challenge where it won 3rd place. The fandom I chose was Star Trek. This particular story actually crosses into two subforums of the Star Trek forum. I used bits and pieces from both the original Star Trek and The Next Generation._

 _The title of this story is Problems With Pygmy Puffs which is a riff on the Star Trek episode Trouble With Tribbles. Trouble with Tribbles is about a little fluffy animal that looks like a hamster being given to a crew member of the Enterprise as a gift. When she takes it back to the ship, the creature begins to breed like crazy and soon the ship is inundated with them. Eventually, it is discovered that the Tribbles were sent to the ship to eat all of the grain that the Enterprise was protecting for another civilization. The Pygmy Puffs being sent to the Weasley twins store as a form of sabotage is a play on this theme._

 _There were several points where I used phrases similar to ones from both the original Star Trek and The Next Generation. If you're familiar with Star Trek, make sure to let me know how many you spotted!_

 _And finally, the owner of Zonko's is named Locutus Ovborg. In The Next Generation, Captain Picard is captured by the Borg and transformed into one of them. When he re-introduces himself to Commander Riker and the crew of the Enterprise, his new name is Locutus of Borg._

 _Anyway, this was my first time ever writing a crossover and I had a ton of fun. I'd really love to hear your thoughts on this, so if you have a moment, feel free to leave a comment or two in the grey box below._

 _Thanks for reading._

 _~Kaitlin/TreacleTart_


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